Baltic States’ policies with respect to China - the three sister countries speaking in different voice

ENOver the past decade, China has made noteworthy strides towards drawing Eastern Europe into a web of cooperative relations. Beijing has promised profitable financial investment in the region, and the Baltic states have enjoyed growing economic cooperation with the Asian giant and added value in the countries. With the establishment of the so-called "16+1"1 platform, the Baltic countries’ ties with the emerging superpower strengthened and seemed almost frictionless. China’s involvement in the region has even raised concerns in Brus sels that Beijing could use its financial and technological capabilities to drive a wedge between EU member states. However, over time, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia have apparently stopped rowing in the direction of Beijing. 2021 marks the year when Lithuania withdrew from the "16+1" format, while Estonia and Latvia have reduced its participation in the cooperation platform by sending ministers in stead of heads of state. Few days ago, Lithuania even opened Taiwan’s representative office2 in Vilnius, leading to a diplomatic dispute with China. These aspects show that even though it is agreed that Baltic states speak with one voice in the foreign policy, a different approach towards China could be seen. Lithuania seems to be decoupling from China on two main levels – political-diplomatic and economic-tech nological levels, while Latvia and Estonia remain cautious towards growing superpower. Therefore, the essay aims to discuss the policies of the Baltic states towards China and answer to the question what key motives led that the three countries of the region differ in their approaches how to deal with Beijing. Even though the paper does not aim to provide any policy suggestion, a rhetoric question will be asked – is Lithuania’s assertive policy reasonable or should Lithuania stick to more pragmatic and cautious policy of Latvia and Estonia?.In order to answer these questions, the paper will be divided into four parts: (1) before analyzing the policies of Baltic states towards China, a brief overview on Beijing’s interests in the region will be presented; (2) then, to show different approaches of the Bal tic states towards China, policies of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia will be overviewed; (3) after that, the similarities and differences of the three countries will be summarized and motives leading to the unequal policies will be underlined; (4) finally, the paper will try to evaluate different strategies towards China. [Extract, p. 221-222]